page_title: Mental operations
section_title: Developmental view
hierarchical_section_title: Mental operations / Developmental view
caption_attribution_description: English: Mental operations according to Jean Piaget. Based on information from Ginsburg H., Opper S. (1979). Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development. Prentice Hall, p. 152
context_page_description: Mental operations are operations that affect mental contents. Initially, operations of reasoning have been the object of logic alone. Pierre Janet was one of the first to use the concept in psychology. Mental operations have been investigated at a developmental level by Jean Piaget, and from a psychometric perspective by J. P. Guilford. There is also a cognitive approach to the subject, as well as a systems view of it.
context_section_description: Jean Piaget identifies several mental operations of the concrete operational stage of cognitive development:
  Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.
  Transitivity—The ability to recognize logical relationships among elements in a serial order, and perform 'transitive inferences' (for example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A must be taller than C).
  Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.
  Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.
  Reversibility—the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.
  Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.
  Piaget also describes a formal operational stage, with formal operations of abstract thinking: hypothesizing, hypothesis testing, and deduction.
caption: Mental operations according to Jean Piaget.
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